Joseph Schumpeter

Schumpeter, Joseph Alois

Joseph Alois Schumpeter (yō´zĕf ä´lōēs shŏŏm´pā´tər), 1883–1950, Austrian-American economist, LL.D. Univ. of Vienna, 1906. He began practicing law but turned to teaching two years later. He was professor of economics at the Univ. of Graz from 1911 to 1914 and at Bonn from 1925 to 1932, when he went to the United States; thereafter he was professor of economics at Harvard. He served (1919–20) as Austrian minister of finance. His major contributions to economics were the theory of the entrepreneur as the dynamic factor in fostering the business cycle and the theory of economic development of capitalism. His most important books are Theory of Economic Development (1911, in German; tr. 1934), Business Cycles (1939), Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy (1942, 3d ed. 1950), and History of Economic Analysis (1954).